Gnop!

Bungie, Inc. is an American video game company based in Bellevue, Washington, and a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment. The company was established in May 1991 by Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones after publishing Jones's game '' Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete''. Originally based in Chicago, Illinois, the company concentrated on Macintosh games during its early years and created two successful video game franchises called ''Marathon'' and ''Myth''. An offshoot studio, Bungie West, produced ''Oni'', published in 2001 and owned by Take-Two Interactive, which held a 19.9% ownership stake at the time.

Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000, and its project '' Halo: Combat Evolved'' was repurposed as a launch title for Microsoft's Xbox console. ''Halo'' became the Xbox's "killer app", selling millions of copies and spawning the ''Halo'' franchise. On October 5, 2007, Bungie announced that it had split from Microsoft and become a privately held independent company, Bungie LLC, while Microsoft retained ownership of the ''Halo'' franchise intellectual property. It signed a ten-year publishing deal with Activision in April 2010. Their first project was the 2014 first-person shooter, ''Destiny'', which was followed by ''Destiny 2'' in 2017. In January 2019, Bungie announced it was ending this partnership, and would take over publishing for ''Destiny''.

Sony Interactive Entertainment completed its acquisition of Bungie in July 2022, with Bungie remaining a multi-platform studio and publisher.

Among Bungie's side projects is Bungie.net, the company's website, which includes company information, forums, and statistics-tracking and integration with many of its games. Bungie.net serves as the platform from which Bungie sells company-related merchandise out of the Bungie Store and runs other projects, including Bungie Aerospace, a charitable organization called The Bungie Foundation, a podcast, and online publications about game topics.

History

Background and founding (1990–1993)

In the early 1990s, Alex Seropian was pursuing a mathematics degree at the University of Chicago, as the university did not offer undergraduate degrees in computer science. Living at home shortly before graduation, his father's wishes for him to get a job convinced Seropian to start his own game company instead.

Seropian's first video game was a ''Pong'' clone, written and released nearly 20 years after the original, called ''Gnop!'' (''Pong'' spelled backwards). The game was created in 1990, almost a year before Bungie's official incorporation, but was released under the Bungie name and is considered by Bungie as its first game. Seropian released ''Gnop!'' free of charge, but sold the source code for the game for US$15. ''Gnop!'' was later included in several compilations of early Bungie games, including the '' Marathon Trilogy Box Set'' and the ''Mac Action Sack''.

Seropian officially founded Bungie Software Products Corporation in May 1991 to publish '' Operation: Desert Storm''. Seropian culled funding from friends and family, assembling the game boxes and writing the disks himself. ''Operation: Desert Storm'' sold 2,500 copies, and Seropian looked for another game to publish.

Seropian met programmer Jason Jones in an artificial intelligence course at the University of Chicago. Jones was a longtime programmer who was porting a game he wrote, called ''Minotaur'', from an Apple II to the Macintosh platform. Jones recalled, "I didn't really know [Alex] in the class. I think he actually thought I was a dick because I had a fancy computer". Seropian and Jones partnered to release the role-playing video game as '' Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete'' in 1992; while Jones finished the coding, Seropian handled design and publicity. The game relied on then-uncommon internet modems and AppleTalk connections for play and sold around 2,500 copies, and developed a devoted following. Both Seropian and Jones are considered co-founders of Bungie.

The team focused on the Macintosh platform, not Windows-based personal computers, because the Mac market was more open and Jones had been raised on the platform. While Jones was responsible for many of the creative and technical aspects, Seropian was a businessman and marketer. "What I liked about eropianwas that he never wasted any money", Jones recalled. With no money to hire other personnel, the two assembled ''Minotaur'' boxes by hand in Seropian's apartment. While the pair remained low on funds—Seropian's wife was largely supporting him—the modest success of ''Minotaur'' gave the duo enough money to develop another project.

Inspired by the shooter game ''Wolfenstein 3D'', Jones wrote a 3D game engine for the Mac. Bungie's next game was intended to be a 3D port of ''Minotaur'', but Jones and Seropian found that ''Minotaur''s top-down perspective gameplay did not translate well to the 3D perspective, and did not want to rely on modems. Instead, they developed a new storyline for the first-person shooter that became ''Pathways into Darkness'', released in 1993. Jones did the coding, with his friend Colin Brent creating the game's art. The game was a critical and commercial success, winning awards including Inside Mac Games' "Adventure Game of the Year" and ''Macworld''s "Best Role-Playing Game".

''Pathways'' beat sales expectations and became Bungie's first commercial success. Bungie moved from a one-bedroom apartment to a studio in Chicago's South Side on South Halsted Street; Seropian and Jones's first full-time employee, Doug Zartman, joined in May 1994 to provide support for ''Pathways'', but became Bungie's public relations person, honing Bungie's often sophomoric sense of humor and irreverence. Bungie composer Martin O'Donnell remembered that the studio's location, a former girls' school next to a crack house, "smelled like a frat house after a really long weekend" and reminded staff of a locale from the ''Silent Hill'' horror video games.

''Marathon'', ''Myth'' and ''Oni'' (1994–2001)

Bungie's next project began as a sequel to ''Pathways into Darkness'', but evolved into a futuristic first-person shooter called ''Marathon''. ''Pathways'' had taught Bungie the importance of story in a game, and ''Marathon'' featured computer terminals where players could choose to learn more about the game's fiction. The studio became what one employee termed "your stereotypical vision of a small computer-game company—eating a lot of pizza, drinking a lot of Coke" while the development team worked 14 hours every day for nearly six months.

After showing the game at the Macworld Expo, Bungie was mobbed with interest and orders for the game. The game was not finished until December 14, 1994; Jones and a few other employees spent a day at a warehouse assembling boxes so that some of the orders could be filled before Christmas. The game was a critical and commercial success, and is regarded as a relatively unknown but important part of gaming history. It served as the Mac alternative to DOS PC-only games like ''Doom'' and ''System Shock''. The game's volume of orders was unprecedented for the studio, who found that its old method of mail or phone orders could not scale to the demand and hired another company to handle the tens of thousands of orders. ''Marathon'' also brought Bungie attention from press outside the small Mac gaming market.

The first game's success led to a sequel, '' Marathon 2: Durandal''. The series introduced several elements, including cooperative mode, which made their way to later Bungie games. The game was released November 24, 1995, and outsold its predecessor. When Bungie announced its intention to port the game to the Windows 95 operating system, however, many Mac players felt betrayed, and Bungie received a flood of negative mail. Seropian saw the value of moving into new markets and partnering with larger supply chains, although he lamented the difficult terms and "sucky" contracts distributors provided. The game released on Windows 95 in September 1996. '' Marathon Infinity'' was released the following year.

After ''Marathon'', Bungie moved away from first-person shooters to release a strategy game, '' Myth: The Fallen Lords''. The game stressed tactical unit management as opposed to the resource gathering model of other combat strategy titles. The ''Myth'' games won several awards and spawned a large and active online community. ''Myth: The Fallen Lords'' was the first Bungie game to be released simultaneously for both Mac and Windows platforms.

The success of ''Myth'' enabled Bungie to change Chicago offices and establish a San Jose, California based branch of the studio, Bungie West, in 1997. Bungie West's first and only game would be ''Oni'', an action title for the Mac, PC and PlayStation 2.

''Halo'' and Microsoft acquisition (2001–2007)

In 1999, Bungie announced its next product, '' Halo: Combat Evolved'', originally intended to be a third-person shooter game for Windows and Macintosh. ''Halo''s public unveiling occurred at the Macworld Expo 1999 keynote address by Apple's then-interim-CEO Steve Jobs (after a closed-door screening at E3 in 1999).

On June 19, 2000, on the ninth anniversary of Bungie's founding, Microsoft announced that it had acquired Bungie and that Bungie would become a part of the Microsoft Game Division. ''Halo'' would be developed as an exclusive first-person shooter title for the Xbox. The reasons for Bungie accepting Microsoft's offer were varied. Jones stated that "I don't remember the details exactly, it was all a blur. We'd been talking to people for years and years—before we even published ''Marathon'', Activision made a serious offer. But the chance to work on Xbox—the chance to work with a company that took the games seriously. Before that we worried that we'd get bought by someone who just wanted Mac ports or didn't have a clue". Martin O'Donnell, who had joined Bungie as an employee ten days before the merger was announced, remembers that the stability of the Xbox as a development platform was not the only benefit. Shortly before ''Myth II''s release, it was discovered versions of the game could erase a player's hard drive; the glitch led to a massive recall of the games right before they shipped, which cost Bungie nearly one million dollars. O'Donnell stated in a Bungie podcast that this recall created some financial uncertainty, although accepting the offer was not something Bungie "had to do". Seropian and Jones had refused to accept Microsoft's offer until the entire studio agreed to the buyout.

As a result of the buyout, the rights to ''Myth'' and ''Oni'' were transferred to Take-Two Interactive (which at the time owned 19.9% of the studio) as part of the three-way deal between Microsoft, Bungie and Take-Two Interactive; most of the original ''Oni'' developers were able to continue working on ''Oni'' until its release in 2001. ''Halo: Combat Evolved'', meanwhile, went on to become a critically acclaimed hit, selling more than 6.5 million copies, and becoming the Xbox's flagship franchise.

''Halo''s success led to Bungie creating three sequels. ''Halo 2'' was released on November 9, 2004, making more than $125 million on release day and setting a record in the entertainment industry. ''Halo 3'' was released on September 25, 2007, and surpassed ''Halo 2''s records, making $170 million in its first twenty-four hours of release.

Buyout and ''Destiny'' (2007–2022)

On October 1, 2007, Microsoft and Bungie announced that Bungie was splitting off from its parent and becoming a privately held limited liability company named Bungie, LLC. As outlined in a deal between the two, Microsoft would retain a minority stake and continue to partner with Bungie on publishing and marketing both ''Halo'' and future projects, with the ''Halo'' intellectual property belonging to Microsoft.

While Bungie planned on revealing a new game at E3 2008, Bungie studio head Harold Ryan announced that the unveiling was canceled. Almost three months later, Bungie announced that the new game was a prequel and expansion to ''Halo 3'' titled ''Halo 3: Recon''. The next month, Bungie changed the game's title from ''Halo 3: Recon'' to '' Halo 3: ODST''. At E3 2009, Bungie and Microsoft revealed the company was developing another ''Halo''-related game, '' Halo: Reach'', for release in 2010. ''Reach'' was the last game in the ''Halo'' franchise to be developed by Bungie.

Bungie continued expanding, though it did not commit to details about new projects and ship dates. The company grew from roughly 120 employees in May 2008 to 165 in June 2009, outgrowing the studio Microsoft developed. Ryan helped redesign a former multiplex movie theater in Bellevue into new Bungie offices, with replacing the the company occupied previously.

In April 2010, Bungie announced that it was entering into a 10-year publishing agreement with publisher Activision Blizzard. Under Bungie's agreement with Activision, new intellectual property developed by Bungie will be owned by Bungie, not Activision, in a deal similar to the Electronic Arts Partners Program.

On June 30, 2011, Bungie announced the "Bungie Aerospace" project; its slogan, "''Per audacia ad astra''", translates to "Boldly to the stars". The project is intended to provide independent game developers with publishing, resources, and support, including access to the Bungie.net platform. In November 2011, Bungie Aerospace published its first game, ''Crimson: Steam Pirates'', for iOS, developed by startup video game developer Harebrained Schemes. In addition to publishing and distributing ''Crimson'', Bungie Aerospace provided players with statistical support and a dedicated discussion forum on Bungie.net.

In 2013, Bungie announced ''Destiny'', which launched for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One platforms on September 9, 2014. During January 2016, Ryan stepped down as president and Pete Parsons, who had been the company's chief operating officer and executive producer since 2002, became its chief executive officer.

Chinese video game conglomerate NetEase had invested $100 million into Bungie in 2018, in exchange for a minority stake in the company and a seat on the company's board of directors.

Bungie terminated its publishing deal with Activision in 2019, after eight years; as per their agreement, Bungie retained all rights to ''Destiny'' and will self-publish future installments and expansions. This included transitioning ''Destiny 2'' from using Activision's Battle.net to Steam. Bungie's communications director David Dague dispelled ideas that Activision was a "prohibitive overlord" that limited Bungie's creative control, and instead stated that both companies amicably split due to different ideas of where the ''Destiny'' franchise should head.

Bungie announced a major expansion of its firm in February 2021. In addition to more than doubling its headquarters space in Bellevue, Washington, Bungie announced plans to open a new studio in Amsterdam by 2022. This would support additional staff not only for ''Destiny'' but additional media related to ''Destiny'' outside of video games, as well as a new intellectual property unrelated to ''Destiny'' that Bungie expects to release by 2025.

Acquisition by Sony Interactive Entertainment (2022–present)

On January 31, 2022, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced its intent to acquire Bungie for $3.6 billion. While Bungie would become part of the PlayStation family of studios it would remain an independent subsidiary under Sony in development and publishing and would not be part of PlayStation Studios. Instead, Sony's investment would help Bungie with hiring for developers to expand their work on the ''Destiny'' franchise and other planned games. Both companies stated that the deal would not affect platform availability or exclusivity for ''Destiny 2'' but instead was geared towards media beyond video games that Bungie had been interested in pursuing for some time. Bungie, in return, would help Sony enter the live service games market, as Sony had announced plans to launch at least ten such games by 2026 in an investors' presentation following the Bungie acquisition announcement. Sony also said the Bungie acquisition will help Sony to become more multiplatform.

Of the $3.6 billion, Sony anticipated that at least $1.2 billion will be used as incentives for retention of Bungie's current employees. In May, it was reported that the Federal Trade Commission was opening an inquiry into the acquisition, requesting more information about it a week prior. It was expected to delay the acquisition by at least six months. The acquisition was closed by July 15, 2022, making Bungie a subsidiary under Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Bungie laid off approximately 100 of 1,200 employees on October 30, 2023, part of a larger cost-cutting measure across all Sony studios. According to ''Bloomberg News'', revenue from ''Destiny 2'' fell by 45% over the previous year due to waning popularity of the game, and work on the next major expansion ''The Final Shape'' was not progressing as well as expected. As part of these layoffs, ''The Final Shape'' was delayed from February 2024 to June 2024, while their next game, ''Marathon'' was pushed into 2025.

Bungie announced the layoffs of 220 staff in July 2024, leaving about 850 employees remaining. Future plans including transitioning 155 more into Sony directly. Parsons stated that they had to make this decision "after exhausting all other mitigation options", and that these layoffs would allow them "to refocus our studio and our business with more realistic goals and viable Financials", with focus on ''Destiny'' and ''Marathon'' going forward. Additionally, one of the unannounced games in a new IP that Bungie was developing will be transitioned to a new studio under PlayStation Studios, later revealed to be teamLFG in May 2025. According to journalist Jason Schreier in speaking with those at Bungie, the two rounds of layoffs had resulted from Bungie trying to explore too many new projects too quickly shortly after the Sony acquisition, hiring several new staff and drawing off ''Destiny'' developers to pursue these projects, with the expectation from management that they would be able to pull through with "Bungie magic" that the studio had been known for. The following October, the Creative Studios arm of Bungie was moved and integrated into PlayStation Studios to help support other Sony live service games, though they would also continue to support ''Destiny'' and ''Marathon''.

Bungie had 1,600 employees prior to the first round of layoffs in October 2023, according to former chief legal officer Don McGowan. This indicates that the company has lost over 750 employees in less than a year. Also, several teams at Bungie has transitioned over to Sony PlayStation as part of Bungie's integration into Sony. After a second round of layoffs in July 2024, several high-ranking executives seem to have departed, including Chief Creative Officer Jonny Ebbert and Chief Strategy Officer Ondraus Jenkins.

Bungie.net

Bungie.net serves as the main portal for interaction between company staff and the community surrounding Bungie's games. When Bungie was bought by Microsoft, the site was seen as in competition with Microsoft's own Xbox.com site, but community management eventually won out as the bigger concern. The site has been redesigned several times.

During Bungie's involvement with the ''Halo'' franchise, the site recorded statistics for each game played. This information included statistics on each player in the game, and a map of the game level showing where kills occurred, called "heatmaps". On January 31, 2012, Bungie announced that, as of March 31, 2012, Bungie.net would no longer update ''Halo'' game statistics and ''Halo'' player service records, host new user-generated ''Halo'' content, or operate ''Halo''s "Bungie Pro" service. Bungie's cessation of these services on March 31 completed the transition process of all data for ''Halo'' games being managed by 343 Industries. Bungie.net records player's statistics for their game franchise ''Destiny''. In addition to the collection of data and the management of ''Destiny'' player's accounts, the website serves as a form of communication between Bungie and the community.

While Bungie had long provided places for fans to congregate and talk about games, as well as releasing new information and screenshots over Bungie.net, it historically had made less effort and been less successful at providing access to the inside workings of Bungie and its staff. As part of a move to become more familiar with fans, Bungie recruited recognized and respected voices from the fan community, including writers Luke Smith, Eric Osborne, and others.

Bungie also has an iOS and Google Play application that allows provides news, inventory management, and group finding for their game ''Destiny'' on the go.

Culture

Martin O'Donnell described Bungie's workplace culture as "a slightly irreverent attitude, and not corporate, bureaucratic or business-focused"; artist Shi Kai Wang noted that when he walked into Bungie for an interview, "I realized that I was the one who was over-dressed, ndI knew this was the place I wanted to work". Bungie's content manager and podcast host, Frank O'Connor, comically noted that at a GameStop conference, the Bungie team was told to wear business casual, to which O'Connor replied "We ungiedon't do business casual".

This informal, creative culture was one of the reasons Microsoft was interested in acquiring Bungie, although game designer Jordan Weisman said that Microsoft came close to destroying the company's development culture, as it had with the now-defunct FASA Studio. Studio head Harold Ryan emphasized that even when Bungie was bought by Microsoft, the team was still independent:

One of the first things icrosofttried after acquiring Bungie, after first attempting to fully assimilate them, was to move Bungie into a standard Microsoft building with the rest of the game group. But unlike the rest of the teams they'd brought in previously, Bungie didn't move into Microsoft corporate offices – we tore all of the walls out of that section of the building and sat in a big open environment. Luckily Alex and Jason eropian and Jones, Bungie's founderswere pretty steadfast at the time about staying somewhat separate and isolated.

In 2007, Microsoft eventually moved the studio to Kirkland, Washington, where it reincorporated as Bungie, Inc. Despite the move, financial analyst Roger Ehrenberg declared the Bungie-Microsoft marriage "doomed to fail" due to these fundamental differences. Bungie also pointed out that it was tired of new intellectual property being cast aside to work on the ''Halo'' franchise. ''Edge'' described the typical Bungie employee as "simultaneously irreverent and passionately loyal; fiercely self-critical; full of excitement at the company's achievements, no matter how obscure; ndrecruited from its devoted fanbase".

The Bungie workplace is highly informal, with new and old staff willing to challenge each other on topics, such as fundamental game elements. Staff are able to publicly criticize their own games and each other. Fostering studio cooperation and competition, Bungie holds events such as the "Bungie Pentathlon", in which staff square off in teams playing games such as ''Halo'', '' Pictionary'', ''Dance Dance Revolution'', and ''Rock Band''. Bungie also faced off against professional eSports teams and other game studios in ''Halo'' during " Humpdays", with the results of the multiplayer matches being posted on Bungie.net.

Bungie's staff and fans, known as the "Seventh Column", have banded together for charity and other causes. After Hurricane Katrina, Bungie was one of several game companies to announce its intention to help those affected by the hurricane, with Bungie donating the proceeds of special T-shirts to the American Red Cross; after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Bungie sold "Be a Hero" T-shirts and donated money to the Red Cross for every ''Halo 3'' or ''ODST'' player on Xbox Live who wore a special heart-shaped emblem. Other charity work Bungie has done included auctioning off a painting of "Mister Chief" by O'Connor, a ''Halo 2'' soda machine from Bungie's offices, and collaborating with Child's Play auctions. In 2011, Bungie formed a nonprofit organization, named Bungie Foundation.

In December 2021, ''IGN'' reported from interviews with 26 former and current employees that there had been past and some current issues with a male-dominated work culture and crunch time that was discriminatory towards female employees since around 2011, but the company more recently had been working to improve these issues, previously parting ways with the majority of people mentioned in the article. Parsons wrote a response about Bungie's commitment to improve the workplace culture, which had aligned with statements from more recent employees that had spoken to ''IGN''. Parsons apologized to any employee who "ever experienced anything less than a safe, fair, and professional working environment at Bungie", and stated of several efforts that the company was making to eliminate any type of "rockstar" attitude that may exist at the studio.

Games developed

In addition to games, Bungie has developed its own game engine, originally named the Blam Engine for the ''Halo'' games, and then heavily modified and renamed as the Tiger Engine for ''Destiny''.

Legal issues

AimJunkies lawsuit

Bungie had initiated legal action against AimJunkies, a group owned by Phoenix Digital that sold software that allowed for cheating in ''Destiny 2'', in 2021, asserting copyright infringement, violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and trafficking in DMCA-violating software; Bungie's initial claims were dismissed but an amended lawsuit allowed the case to proceed. AimJunkies attempted to countersue on claims that Bungie has hacked into the computer of the user that had developed these cheats, but those were dismissed in 2022. At trial, judge Thomas Samuel Zilly ruled that Bungie lacked sufficient evidence to allow the DMCA and trafficking claims to move forward but instead sent these complaints to arbitration, where Bungie was awarded $4.3 million in damages. The copyright claims proceeded to a jury trial, which found for Bungie in May 2024. While Bungie was only awarded around $63,000, the revenue made by the sale of the cheat programs by AimJunkies, the result was considered to be significant as it was the first time a jury trial ruled in game cheating software and could carry as case law in future lawsuits. AimJunkies asserted their plan to appeal both the arbitration and trial judgement.

Plagiarism lawsuit

In October 2024, Kelsey Martineau sued Bungie in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana on claims that the "Red War" narrative from the launch of ''Destiny 2'' was lifted from a work he wrote on Wordpress in 2013 and 2014. The lawsuit was filed after Bungie had sunsetted the "Red War" content, and to defend its position to the court to demonstrate how "Red War" differed substantially from Martineau's work, they had submitted YouTube videos from popular ''Destiny 2'' content creators made before the sunsetting and pages from a ''Destiny'' fan wiki as part of a motion to dismiss the case. The judge, Susie Morgan, ruled in May 2025 that she could not accept this evidence to support Bungie's motion, allowing the case to proceed.

Unlicensed art use

There have been four known incidents where independent artists have found their work used by Bungie in its games without their permission or knowledge.

* Part of a ''Destiny 2'' in-game cut scene for content released in 2021 included a work that had been drawn by online artist Mal E in 2020 without the artist's knowledge. Bungie reached out to Mal E, and later affirmed that they have got the artist's permission and included the proper credit within the game for its use.
* A similar situation occurred in 2023, when artist Julian Faylona had discovered an image within a ''Destiny 2'' cutscene nearly mirrored work they previously created in 2020. Bungie said the cut scene had been developed by one of its support studios, and it worked to properly compensate Faylona.
* When partnering with Nerf to release a Nerf Ace of Spades gun based on that used by popular character Cayde-6, artist Tofu_Rabbit discovered the designs of the Nerf version, while they had swapped colors, used several of the same art elements such as wearing, smudges, and scratches of the gun's frame that had been in their own 2015 design. Bungie affirmed the design had been done by Nerf and was working to compensate Tofu_Rabbit for the situation and credit their contribution.
* In May 2025, online artist Antireal demonstrated that Bungie had used art she had created in 2017 as art assets within the 2025 ''Marathon'' game, after the game had completed its first open beta. Bungie, after investigating, affirmed that a former art developer for the game has used Antireal's art without permission, promising to work with Antireal to correct the situation, and was performing a full evaluation of all of the art assets in ''Marathon'' to verify their originality within Bungie.

Related companies

Many of Bungie's employees have left the company to form their own studios. Double Aught was a short-lived company composed of several former Bungie team members, founded by Greg Kirkpatrick. Seropian left to form Wideload Games, developer of '' Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse'', and later co-founded Industrial Toys. Other companies include Giant Bite, founded by Hamilton Chu (producer on ''Halo'' and ''Oni'') and Michael Evans (project lead on ''Oni''), and Certain Affinity, founded by Max Hoberman (the multiplayer design lead for ''Halo 2'' and ''Halo 3''). Certain Affinity's team included former Bungie employees David Bowman and Chad Armstrong (who later returned to Bungie). The studio collaborated with Bungie in releasing the last two downloadable maps for ''Halo 2'' and the downloadable Defiant Map Pack for ''Halo: Reach''. 343 Industries, a game studio formed by Microsoft to manage the ''Halo'' series following the launch of ''Halo: Reach,'' also includes a few former Bungie employees, including Frank O'Connor. In 2015, long-time Bungie employee Martin O'Donnell started a new game studio known as Highwire Games. In 2016, former Bungie CEO and studio head Harold Ryan founded a new game studio known as ProbablyMonsters.

References

External links

*

{{Good article

1991 establishments in Illinois
2000 mergers and acquisitions
Companies based in Bellevue, Washington
American companies established in 1991
Video game companies based in Washington (state)
Video game companies established in 1991
Video game development companies
Former Microsoft subsidiaries
Sony Interactive Entertainment
2022 mergers and acquisitions